Category Archives: New Kirby

So, apparently this is in stores this week:

SPIRIT WORLD: Hardcover edition of Kirby’s early 1970s horror/fantasy work for DC, including SPIRIT WORLD #1 and some stories intended for #2 but later published elsewhere after that was cancelled.  I’d be very curious to read a description of the book if anyone gets a copy right away, including the size of the book and if they attempt to replicate that sickly blue printing and ink wash of the the original comic.

Harry comes through with some scans here in his review.  #1 is in the blue ink wash, but better looking than the original printing, the stories intended for #2 are in glorious black and white.

Now available is SOMEDAY FUNNIES, Michel Choquette’s lost anthology about the 1960s, including among the many contents a previously unpublished 2-page story by Jack Kirby from the early 1970s.  You can see a sample of Kirby’s story, “The Ballad Of Beardsley Bullfeather Or Tune-In — Cop-Out And Drop-Up”, over here and read an interview with Choquette about the book (plus another sample of Kirby’s art) over here. Looks like an interesting book overall, in addition to the Kirby pages.

…and updating, Rand Hoppe shares photocopies of the pencils to the story (with some differences in the script) from the Kirby Museum files.

Just got my copy of THE SIMON AND KIRBY LIBRARY: CRIME hardcover published by Titan, with over 300 pages of vintage S&K comics, mostly published from 1947-1949 (with a pair of later Mainline stories).  Copies should be making their way through all standard channels, including comic shops and bookstores, in the next few weeks.  A gorgeous book, with a lot of action-packed and violent adventures of criminals and the law-enforcement professionals tasked with their capture.  Because as you know, “Commit a crime and the world is made of glass”.

Also apparently showing up in comic shops this week is DC’s DC COMICS PRESENTS THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS SAMPLER #1, for those who didn’t want to commit to the recent THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS VOL. 1 – STARRING GREEN ARROW hardcover sight unseen a marginally cheaper way to get a look at about a third of the book.  And Pure Imagination has the second and final volume of Greg Theakston’s JACK MAGIC biography of Jack Kirby.

And, since a couple of people asked, I’m currently not mentioning Marvel books in the new/upcoming Kirby posts, for the moment I’m still listing them on the announcement page if you’re curious about them.

Out now from DC, KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH OMNIBUS v1, collecting the first 20 issues of the series.  These were all reprinted a few  years ago in another format, but hopefully this time we’ll see a reprint of the balance of Kirby’s 40 issue run on the series.  Some great stuff in this one, in particular #7, “The Monster Fetish”, is among my favourite Kirby stories ever, and “The Hospital” in #16, presenting as much as we get of an origin for “Earth A. D.”, is clever and touching.

DC’s THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS VOL. 1, a collection of Kirby’s non-Challengers 1950s material for the company (Green Arrow and various short stories and covers for the genre anthologies), plus a handful of pages from the 1940s, is now available.  Lots of stuff which has never been reprinted before.

Also, if you didn’t pick up Dynamite’s KIRBY GENESIS #0 a few months ago, you can read it for free on-line right now. The series is based on Kirby Estate owned characters, and the “#0″ issue features Kirby’s Pioneer plaque as a story element, and the back-matter has several of the original Kirby character designs, plus Kirby’s text that originally accompanied the plaque in the LA Times.  Nothing too new in there if you’re a regular reader of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, but some good stuff none the less.

And, can anyone verify whether Greg Theakston’s JACK MAGIC VOL. 1 biography of Kirby came out recently? [Since verified, it came out July 6]